Online privacy might be the biggest oxymoron of the early 21st century. Computer users are so ready to share the most innocuous details about their lives on social networks, for example, that it seems privacy has willingly been surrendered.
Information security researchers, privacy experts and hackers alike, in the meantime, have become adept at foraging for nuggets of personal data to exploit this phenomenon. Perhaps no individuals have been more at the forefront of this movement than Carnegie Mellon University professors Alessandro Acquisti and Ralph Gross. Two years ago at the Black Hat Briefings in Las Vegas, the two researchers proved what had long been a theory that individualsâ Social Security numbers could be predicted based on publicly available information about them.

Next week at Black Hat, Acquisti and Gross will reveal details on another phase of their research. This time, they will explain how the convergence of facial recognition technology and data, including images, posted to social networks could lead to the re-identification of individuals and strangers online.